“Planning the HEALTH in Your Retirement” with Dr. Michelle Fritsch of Retirement Wellness Strategies
After years in academia and geriatric healthcare, Dr. Michelle Fritsch started a business in late 2018 called Retirement Wellness Strategies. The website is www.retirewellness.com. This came from years of seeing people, mostly men with high demand jobs, be ‘robbed’ of their retirement dreams due to preventable health crises. Over 25 years of healthcare expertise led to creation of 16 proprietary tools enabling clients to prevent issues with physical health through current health optimization and very proactive risk management (all in collaboration with current healthcare team), physical and social health, and health in transition from career to what comes next. The end result is a strategic plan for health in retirement.
This workshop will focus on the why and how of your retirement health strategic plan.
Avoid unnecessary costs and avoidable health decline surprises
Minimize specific health risks
Assure you’re on the right meds
Avoid an early death (where your kids get all of your hard earned money!)
More Webinars from Elville and Associates
The education of clients and their families through counseling and superior legal-technical knowledge is the mission of Elville and Associates. We hold multiple educational events every month. Click to view our calendar of educational webinars and events or visit the Elville and Associates YouTube channel to view recordings of our past webinars.
As you know COVID-19 has affected us all in many ways, and one significant way it has had impact is on our mental health.
This workshop gives you the latest statistics on mental health and how is has changed with this pandemic, as well as some things to consider, strategies to help and resources for your toolbox.
Presenting is Ms. Ellen S. Platt, MEd, CRC, CCM, Founder and President of The Option Group, which provides unique services to older adults and their children or caregivers to navigate longevity. She is both a Certified Rehabilitation Counselor and a certified Professional Geriatric/LifeCare Manager.
Ellen’s experience spans almost 30 years providing care management and case coordination services to those with catastrophic injury, chronic diseases and disabilities. Out of that experience, she created The Option Group to address similar needs and services specifically for seniors and their caregivers. Her primary practice is now focused on caregivers and aging families, and the large variety of issues and needs, unique to that population.
Ellen and her team conduct comprehensive evaluations, make recommendations, implement a plan of care and coordinate resources to support it. Ongoing monitoring can also be set up so the most appropriate plan of care can be implemented at all times, and changes can be made, should the condition of the senior change.
More Webinars from Elville and Associates
The education of clients and their families through counseling and superior legal-technical knowledge is the mission of Elville and Associates. We hold multiple educational events every month. Click to view our calendar of educational webinars and events or visit the Elville and Associates YouTube channel to view recordings of our past webinars.
More Webinars from Elville and Associates
The education of clients and their families through counseling and superior legal-technical knowledge is the mission of Elville and Associates. We hold multiple educational events every month. Click to view our calendar of educational webinars and events or visit the Elville and Associates YouTube channel to view recordings of our past webinars.
The 2020 election is almost upon us. The recent past has taught us that trying to predict the results of an election can be futile at best. Still, our clients need timely counsel regarding their wealth management, and it is our role as advisors to keep them as informed as possible when it comes to potential tax changes on the horizon. While we do not know for sure what the future holds, we do have strong clues as to what the future tax laws may look like if the balance of power shifts in 2021 from Republican to Democratic hands.
Much of what we know about the potential tax landscape under a Democratic majority has been pieced together from reviewing campaign speeches and debates, observing interviews with candidates, and poring over drafted legislation that is just waiting to be dusted off and introduced into Congress for passage.
It is important to note that the chances of these changes being implemented in the near future is not limited to what happens in the November elections. Some commentators suggest that even under a continued Republican-controlled government, many of the changes discussed below could be implemented as the nation grapples with the economic pressures stemming from the coronavirus pandemic of 2020.
Proposed Policy Adjustments under a Democratic Presidency
Some of the key proposals most relevant to estate and tax planning include adjustments to estate, gift, and income taxation laws.
Estate, Gift, and Generation-Skipping Transfer (GST) Taxes
In 2020, the estate and gift tax exemption is set at $11.58 million (indexed for inflation), with any wealth over that amount taxed at a 40 percent rate as it passes to heirs. This exemption amount is scheduled to be lowered to $5 million (also indexed for inflation) on December 31, 2025, unless new legislation is passed before then.
Presidential candidate Biden has suggested that he would support legislation to reduce both the estate and GST tax exemptions to $3.5 million per individual and would lower the lifetime gift tax exemption to $1 million.
In addition to reduced transfer tax exemption amounts, a number of Democratic tax reform proposals have discussed returning estate tax rates to historic norms. What does that mean? In the 1940s, the top estate tax rate was 77 percent, and under 2001 federal tax law, it was as high as 45–55 percent. It therefore seems likely that we could see an upward adjustment in the transfer tax rates.
Capital Gains Taxes
Our current law taxes capital gains as regular income if those gains are realized on property held for less than one year. For long-term capital gains (gains on property held for a year or longer), there is a graduated tax rate depending upon the tax filer’s income level (0 percent, 15 percent, or 20 percent). For individuals and couples who earn more than $200,000 and $250,000 per year respectively in net investment income, there is an additional 3.8 percent surtax added to their capital gains tax rate.
In addition, the current law allows for a step-up in basis to the date-of-death value on appreciated property transferred after the owner dies. This allows for selling or liquidating inherited property shortly after the death of an individual with little to no capital gains taxes assessed on the sale of the property.
Today’s law also allows for like-kind exchanges on appreciated property such as artwork and rental properties. These laws allow people to reinvest the gains that they earn on appreciated property into similar types of property without ever having to pay capital gains taxes when sold. If the individual keeps making such like-kind exchanges on appreciated property until the individual’s death, the capital gains accumulated in that property will be erased by the basis step-up rules.
Presidential candidate Biden has proposed changes that would either (1) limit the step-up basis rule for inherited property and impose a carryover basis rule for inherited property or (2) impose recognition of gain on property at the owner’s death. Additionally, the Democratic tax plan proposes eliminating like-kind exchanges as well as imposing a 39.6 percent long-term capital gains tax rate on individuals earning more than $1 million per year. If the law leaves the 3.8 percent surtax on net investment income in place, the effective top federal tax rate on long-term capital gains could reach over 43 percent.
If these changes are implemented along with the changes to the estate tax exemptions and rates, many estates could see significant tax bills at the estate owner’s death.
How Can You Help Your Clients Prepare?
There are a number of possible estate planning strategies that you should discuss with your clients as soon as possible so they do not get caught by surprise should the election usher in the above changes. Here are four strategies for consideration:
1. Grantor Retained Annuity Trust: A properly structured grantor retained annuity trust (GRAT) allows your client to transfer more property to beneficiaries at a lower gift tax value than if the client were to make gifts outright to those same beneficiaries. GRATs are excellent estate planning techniques that are still available today. However, it is important to note that a number of Democratic tax law proposals have identified the use of multiple short-term GRATs as a tax loophole that needs to be curtailed. Thus, the window of opportunity for using a GRAT to transfer large amounts of wealth at a significant discount may be closing soon.
2. Installment Sale to an Intentionally Defective Grantor Trust: This technique allows the client to sell appreciating property such as real estate or even a family business (such as a family limited partnership) to a carefully drafted trust in return for an installment note using the currently low applicable federal interest rate. Cash should also be transferred into the trust (a taxable gift) so that the trustee has cash with which to make payments on the installment note (usually 10–15 percent of the property’s fair market value) in order to avoid an argument from the Internal Revenue Service that the sale is actually a gift. The installment note can be structured as an interest-only note with a balloon payment at the end of the loan term or even as a self-canceling installment note. Property in the trust must obtain a rate of return or growth in excess of the interest rate for this strategy to succeed. In a low interest rate environment like today, there is a much greater chance of obtaining that favorable result.
This strategy requires that your client be prepared to pay income tax on the income generated by the trust property. However, this feature allows for even more indirect and tax-efficient wealth transfer. At the end of the loan term, income and appreciation exceeding the required note payments pass to the trust beneficiaries, free of gift, estate, and GST tax (if designed to do so). This planning tool works well for clients with income-generating real property or business interests that are expected to appreciate.
3. Spousal Lifetime Access Trust: The spousal lifetime access trust (SLAT) strategy requires the client to make a gift of property into an irrevocable trust for the benefit of the client’s spouse (as a beneficiary of the trust) and other beneficiaries (children or grandchildren). The trust names an independent trustee who has discretion to make distributions among the various beneficiaries. The transfer to the trust is intentionally designed to not qualify for the unlimited marital deduction. This allows for fuller utilization of the gifting spouse’s estate exemption and shields the appreciation on the transferred property from future gift and estate tax.
This strategy is designed to take advantage of the current high exemption amounts. A SLAT is a grantor trust for income tax purposes (the trust will not pay income tax, allowing trust property to grow estate tax free during the donor’s lifetime).
Ideal clients for a SLAT strategy are happily married couples (because the SLAT is irrevocable) who own property that is expected to significantly appreciate and who can transfer such property irrevocably without jeopardizing their current standard of living. It is important to understand that there are carryover basis considerations associated with this strategy that should be carefully calculated and weighed before implementation.
4. Irrevocable Life Insurance Trust: Although the irrevocable life insurance trust (ILIT) strategy has not been utilized as much recently as in the past, it is still a highly effective one—especially in an environment where the estate and gift tax exemption amounts may be reduced significantly in the near future, putting clients in a use-it-or-lose-it scenario. This technique calls for a client to transfer property (usually cash) to an irrevocable trust. The gift can be made all in one year and may reduce the client’s gift tax exemption to some extent. However, the cash in the hands of the trustee can be used to purchase life insurance on the client which, when the policy pays out at the client’s death, passes to the trust free of income tax and then on to the trust beneficiaries outside of the client’s estate, and therefore free of estate taxes. Your client typically must have sufficient cash reserves to be able to contribute to the trust and be in good enough health to qualify for a life insurance policy.
Working Together
Even if your clients are not fully prepared to pull the trigger on any of the above strategies before the 2020 election results are known, you should nevertheless plant the seed in their minds so that when the time comes to make a decision, they will be that much more prepared to move quickly. Educating your clients about these and other valuable wealth preservation strategies has the potential to solidly embed you as an essential and trusted family advisor to multiple generations of clients.
By working together, we can help our clients navigate whatever changes these uncertain times may bring. Thoughtful estate planning can provide our clients with peace of mind while they are living and ensure that their wealth is passed on to their loved ones in the most efficient and protected manner. Contact us to discuss how we can weather these changes together.
Sincerely,
Planning for Life, Planning for Legacies
Attorneys at Law
Elville & Associates, P.C.
7100 Columbia Gateway Drive
Suite 190
Columbia, Maryland 21046
P: 443-393-7696 (Main)
F: 443-393-7697 (facsimile)
E: steve@elvilleassociates.com
Webinar — Which Form of Business Entity Is Best for You?, with Chuck Borek, J.D., MBA, CPA
More Webinars from Elville and Associates
The education of clients and their families through counseling and superior legal-technical knowledge is the mission of Elville and Associates. We hold multiple educational events every month. Click to view our calendar of educational webinars and events or visit the Elville and Associates YouTube channel to view recordings of our past webinars.
A controversial policy that reduces the benefits of military spouses is on the way out. The so-called military “widow’s tax” cuts assistance to surviving military spouses who qualify for benefits under two different military benefit programs.
The two programs are:
- The Department of Defense’s Survivor Benefit Plan (SBP), which allows a military retiree to contribute part of their benefit to ensure that family members receive an annuity of up to 55 percent of their retirement pay when they die.
- The Department of Veterans Affairs’ Dependency and Indemnity Compensation (DIC), which awards around $15,000 a year to survivors of veterans or troops who die of service-related causes.
Under the current policy, even though SBP and DIC are different programs paid for by different federal agencies, spouses who are eligible for both benefits have their SBP payments offset by the DIC money the spouse receives. An estimated 65,000 families are affected by the offset, costing them thousands of dollars in benefits. Military families have been fighting to eliminate the widow’s tax for years, but have not had success until now.
Signed into law in December 2019, the bipartisan FY20 National Defense Authorization Act eliminates the widow’s tax in phases beginning in 2021. SBP recipients will receive one-third of the DIC offset amount in 2021 and two-thirds in 2022. In 2023, spouses can receive both benefits in full.
For more information about the change, click here.
If you are a veteran or surviving spouse and have questions related to planning, including the VA Aid & Attendance pension, contact our office and ask to speak to Principal and VA-accredited attorney Lindsay V.R. Moss at lindsay@elvilleassociates.com, or at 443-393-7696. We thank you for your service and look forward to being a resource to you.
#elvilleeducation
More Webinars from Elville and Associates
The education of clients and their families through counseling and superior legal-technical knowledge is the mission of Elville and Associates. We hold multiple educational events every month. Click to view our calendar of educational webinars and events or visit the Elville and Associates YouTube channel to view recordings of our past webinars.
Allocating your personal possessions can be one of the most difficult tasks when creating an estate plan. To avoid family feuds after you are gone, it is important to have a plan and make your wishes clear.
When passing on possessions to your heirs, savings and investments are easy to divide up, since they can be turned into cash. Real estate can also be turned into cash or co-owners can share it. The most difficult items to divvy up are personal possessions—silverware, dishes, artwork, furniture, tools, jewelry — items that are unique and don’t have a set resale value. In legal speak, these are known as “tangible personal property” and can become the focus of family fights. Often one or more children claim that a parent had promised them a particular item. Things may disappear from a house or an apartment shortly before or after a parent’s death, or a child may claim that her 90-year-old somewhat-demented mother “gave” her a cherished diamond ring during life. These types of situations can create great suspicion and irrevocably split families. Siblings may stop communicating due to their anger and distrust.
Clarity about one’s wishes can go a long way toward avoiding these difficulties. Also, it’s important that the personal representative of an estate (also called an executor) secure the deceased person’s residence as soon as possible after death to make sure items don’t disappear. Here are a few steps you or the personal representative of your estate can take to make sure splitting up your stuff doesn’t split up your family:
- List the most important or valuable items in your will. While your will could get very long if you tried to list all of your possessions, you may have a few family heirlooms or valuable artworks that you want to stay in the family. It may be easier for all concerned if you say who should get what. But talk with your children or other family members first to determine who values which items most.
- Direct that certain items be sold. If you have one or more possessions that have much greater value than others, it can be difficult to make your distributions equal. It may make more sense to sell the items of greatest value and distribute the proceeds. For example, in a family whose parents were able to save one painting by a famous artist when they fled Europe during the Holocaust, the children sold the painting and split the proceeds equally, since it would not have been fair for any one of them to have received the painting and none had the resources to buy out the other two. The painting was auctioned at Christie’s and they were all quite happy with the results.
- Write a memorandum. You can write a list of who should receive what item. If your will references the list, it will be enforceable. Be careful about how you describe each item so that there is no confusion. Unlike your will, this list can be as long as you like, and you can change it without having to go back and redo your will. Send a copy to your lawyer as well as any updates as they occur to ensure the list doesn’t get lost or ignored when the time comes.
- Give everything away now. Well, perhaps not everything, but the more you disburse during life, the less that will have to be dealt with at death. When you make gifts, make sure that everyone knows about it so that the person receiving the gift is not suspected of having pilfered your jewelry box, for instance. There may be items that you would like to give away, but still want in your house. This is especially true of artwork and furniture. As long as the new owner is agreeable, you can keep these items around. You might want to tape a note to the back or underside explaining that the Rembrandt, for instance, belongs to your daughter, Jane. (Of course, if it is a Rembrandt, you will need to file a gift tax return and a transfer document.) Be aware that for highly-appreciated property, for tax reasons, it may be better not to make gifts during life because they’ll lose the step-up in basis. So check with your estate planning attorney or tax accountant first.
- Get an appraisal. For the tax reasons referenced above and to guide you in deciding who should get what, it can be useful to know the monetary value of the items you’re giving away, whether during life or at death. This can also be very important for your personal representative and for your heirs in making their decisions.
- Use a lottery. If you do not made choices regarding your estate plan, your personal representative may want to set up a lottery system for distributing the tangible assets. The representative can put names or numbers into a hat and someone can draw them out to determine the order in which the family members or other heirs will choose items. In order to inform the process, the personal representative should create a list of the most valuable items, including their appraisal value if one has been obtained. If everyone is in the same location at the same time, they can simply take turns. If that’s not possible, the personal representative can add pictures to the list to help identify the items and the beneficiaries can choose online, informing the personal representative of their choices as their turns come up. The order of who chooses can change each round, whether reversing or moving along progressively. Here’s the distinction between these two alternatives:
Reversing: 1,2,3,4,5; 5,4,3,2,1; 1,2,3,4,5
Progressive: 1,2,3,4,5; 2,3,4,5,1; 3,4,5,1,2
The more you decide who gets what rather than leaving the decisions to your family, the less likely the distribution process will create family strife.
The attorneys at Elville and Associates strongly encourage a family meeting as part of its estate planning process for its clients. This is an ideal way for clients’ beneficiaries, agents, and advisory team to fully understand how clients’ plans are intended to work, and ensure everyone is on the same page from the beginning. To learn more about the importance of the family meeting, please click here to read an article by Elville and Associates’ attorney and principal Olivia Holcombe-Volke on the subject.
Should you wish to set a time to meet with one of Elville and Associates’ attorneys to discuss your planning needs, please contact Legal Administrator Mary Guay Kramer at mary@elvilleassociates.com or on her direct line at 443-741-3635.
#elvilleeducation
The coronavirus pandemic has forced nursing homes to place a number of restrictions on their residents. These constraints are having the unintended consequence of making it more difficult for nursing home residents to vote. Hundreds of thousands of nursing home and assisted living community residents could be disenfranchised.
Older Americans are some of the most reliable voters, but nursing home residents face challenges to votingeven in normal times, and they are encountering even greater barriers this election season. In response to the coronavirus pandemic, nursing homes have locked down, prohibiting family and friends from visiting residents and residents from leaving the facilities. This means residents may not be able to leave to vote and also will not be able to have help from family members or organizations in obtaining and filling out mail-in ballots.
In past years, nursing homes and assisted living facilities often acted as polling places, but many of those are being moved due to the pandemic. In addition, nonpartisan organizations have historically been able to enter nursing homes to assist residents with their ballots, but it is unclear whether this will be allowed this year. North Carolina and Louisiana specifically prohibit nursing home staff from assisting residents with their ballots, but even in states that don’t explicitly prohibit it, overworked staff may not have the time to help residents.
While federal law requires nursing homes to protect their residents’ rights, including the right to vote, it is “a really open question to what extent people in long-term care institutions are going to be able to participate in our election in November,” says Nina Kohn, a law professor at Syracuse University who has studied facility residents’ voting-rights issues. Kohn warns that “we should be clear that there is tremendous reason to be concerned that nursing home residents will be . . . systematically disenfranchised in this election,”
For more information about this issue, click here, here, and here.
Should you have a question related to a nursing home or assisted living-related matter for one of your family members, don’t hesitate to reach out to one of our experienced elder law attorneys at Elville and Associates. President and Principal Attorney Stephen Elville or Partner and Senior Elder Law Attorney Lindsay Moss would be more than happy to be a resource to your family. Steve and Lindsay may be reached at steve@elvilleassociates.com and lindsay@elvilleassociates.com, respectively. To learn more about Steve, please click here, and to learn more about Lindsay, please click here.
By: Stephen R. Elville — President and Principal Attorney of Elville and Associates, P.C.
For most aging singles and couples, it is important to become educated about elder law-related matters as a practical necessity. But how does one become educated regarding this all too often mysterious, ambiguous, and esoteric subject matter? The following fictitious but all too real short story may provide insight.
Gigi is married with three adult children. Her husband, Jerry, was a successful teacher. During the first few years of their retirement, Gigi and Jerry enjoyed travel and spending time with their grandchildren. Then, over a period of several months, Jerry developed memory issues and was eventually diagnosed as having a form of dementia, Alzheimer’s-type. After caring for Jerry for many months, Gigi began to search for answers to many questions – how will I pay for or manage the cost of care?; is it too late to buy long-term care insurance?; how can I get help in my home and who will manage that caregiving? how can I get respite?; how can I preserve my assets and what will happen to my financial future?; how do I still leave assets for my children now that I am facing this crisis?; how do I get a level of care assessment?; how does the world of Medicaid work and what will happen if Jerry needs a nursing home?
After months of enormous worry and stress, and after an exhaustive search for information (much of what was provided being misinformation and myth rather than facts), Gigi sought the advice of a knowledgeable elder law attorney. She obtained answers to her pressing questions, was relieved of her sense of despair and hopelessness, became empowered through the knowledge that she would not lose all of her financial assets or her home, learned about asset protection and estate planning strategies for elder law, was directed to resources and programs that provide level of care, assessment, care management, financial and tax advice, and more. The main lessons here are that Gigi sought help and became empowered. Because she sought competent professional advice about elder law matters, Gigi went from a position of weakness to a position of power and direction. And just as important, Jerry’s care needs for the long-term future were assessed and addressed.
An elder law consultation is a powerful tool
The elder law consultation is a powerful tool for families facing the care and financial issues involved in today’s aging process. Gigi’s example is illustrative of a crisis or near-crisis situation; whereas it is always advisable to become educated about elder law-related matters well in advance of a crisis. Elder law essentials workshops are available for this purpose with what is known as a pre-crisis elder law consultation as follow-up.
So how do you go about becoming educated through an elder law consultation?
The process is straightforward – there are 3 steps: (1) call or send an email to your elder law attorney to set an appointment; (2) attend the elder law consultation meeting and be prepared to take notes and absorb information – it is advisable to bring a family member or professional advisor along with you for support and collaboration; and (3) be ready to act upon the information provided so that the process of accomplishing your goals can begin. A comprehensive elder law consultation is one of the most powerful tools available to legal consumers today. Take the time to think about this elder law issue.
To schedule an elder law consultation, contact Stephen R. Elville at 443-393-7696, or via email at steve@elvilleassociates.com; or contact Mary Guay Kramer, at 443-741-3635, or via email at mary@elvilleassociates.com.
Connect with us
- January 2026
- December 2025
- November 2025
- October 2025
- September 2025
- August 2025
- July 2025
- June 2025
- May 2025
- April 2025
- March 2025
- February 2025
- January 2025
- September 2024
- August 2024
- July 2024
- May 2024
- April 2024
- March 2024
- February 2024
- January 2024
- December 2023
- November 2023
- October 2023
- September 2023
- August 2023
- July 2023
- June 2023
- May 2023
- March 2023
- February 2023
- January 2023
- December 2022
- November 2022
- October 2022
- September 2022
- August 2022
- July 2022
- June 2022
- May 2022
- April 2022
- March 2022
- February 2022
- January 2022
- December 2021
- November 2021
- October 2021
- September 2021
- August 2021
- July 2021
- June 2021
- May 2021
- April 2021
- March 2021
- February 2021
- January 2021
- December 2020
- November 2020
- October 2020
- September 2020
- August 2020
- July 2020
- June 2020
- May 2020
- April 2020
- March 2020
- February 2020
- January 2020
- December 2019
- November 2019
- October 2019
- September 2019
- August 2019
- July 2019
- June 2019
- May 2019
- April 2019
- February 2019
- November 2018
- May 2018
- April 2018
- January 2018
- June 2017
- March 2017
- December 2016
- November 2016
- September 2016
- August 2016
- July 2016
- June 2016
- May 2016
- April 2016
- March 2016
- February 2016
- January 2016
- December 2015
- November 2015
- October 2015
- September 2015
- August 2015
- June 2015
- May 2015
